Fullerton BooHoo Archives - Page 2 of 25 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

March 9, 2025March 9, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Charting a New Course?

Fullerton is a General Law city. The question of studying the costs and the benefits of adopting a municipal charter was on the agenda for the last city council meeting.

To charter or not to charter. That became the debate. But it shouldn’t have been.

Rather than accepting the benign idea of beginning to study the pros and cons of Fullerton being a charter city, numerous public speakers, a claque obviously organized by Ahmad Zahra, and Zahra himself, began reciting a litany of reasons to not even study the idea. Of course they didn’t know what they were talking about, and kept spewing nonsense, like ginned up election costs, scary rejection of State paternalism, mandates, and planning control, and all sorts of drummed up stuff leading to the inevitable conclusion that California state government is benevolent, well-run, desirable, and comforting.

The speaker list was comprised of the usual suspects: our old, nattering friend (and Scott Markowitz nominator) Diane Vena; the ever-angry Karen Lloreda; the bitter, avian Anjali Tapadia and others.

Good grief, even the superannuated Molly McClanahan appeared, cluck-clucking her disapproval of the proceedings. And there in the audience sitting next to McClanahan, was none other than Jan Flory, looking pretty worn out. Flory didn’t say anything, mercifully, but perfunctorily clapped when speakers questioned the motives and integrity of the council majority. On McClanahan’s other side sat Ms. Lloreda, which was appropriate: two former city councilwomen recalled by their constituents.

Several school district boardmembers showed up, too, trying, and failing to explain the nexus between the municipal charter topic and the welfare of their districts. That was just pathetic lackeyism for Zahra. Boy, have they backed the wrong horse.

As noted before, Zahra’s indignant, theatrical and lengthy diatribe was even more ridiculous that the dumb speeches of his little entourage. He began a recitation of how a 15 member elected charter-writing committee would become a political springboard for bad people (i.e. those not chosen by him) funded by bad interests – like Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, presumably. This was amazing since nobody in their right mind would pursue this approach. I don’t know if any city ever has. But Zahra must have thought it was good obfuscation to help confuse the already dimly lit brains of his followers, I guess.

There was a plot afoot said Zahra, with devious manipulators pulling the council’s strings to buy and sell Fullerton, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Don’t believe what they say, said the master of prevarication.

Ferguson speaks. Fullerton Boohoo is not happy…

One speaker, Joshua Ferguson supported the study, pointing out that the process of voting on a charter was actually highly democratic because it gave people a chance to participate in how their city is governed. The Three Old Ladies shook their heads in disapprobation.

The three councilmembers who voted to simply consider the idea – Jung, Dunlap and Valencia – didn’t try to justify some positive end result, reasonably supporting a study, the sort of thing people like Zahra and his friend Shana Charles normally adore.

The idea here is that actually learning things about something relating to city governance is a good thing.

I don’t know anything about the benefits or drawbacks of having a municipal charter; neither do the people of Fullerton;. neither does our City Council, two of whom, Zahra and Charles voted to remain ignorant.

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025About Us

And the Award for Worst Over Acting Goes to…

by The Fullerton Harpoon34 Comments

The other night City Councilperson Ahmad Zahra put on quite a display of self-righteous indignation. The topic was whether or not to look into the advantages of Fullerton becoming a charter city. That move might give the city some flexibilities our current status as a General Law city might not afford. The issue was about as dangerous as self-rising flour, but to hear Zahra go on about it you’d think a vast conspiracy was afoot to separate Fullerton citizens from their freedom.

His outraged and disjointed diatribe must have lasted five minutes. He went for the cheap seats. Anger. Sardonic smiles. Dramatic hand gestures. Putting on, taking off glasses. Goodness gracious. How he longs to be a Third World dictator.

Zahra’s indignance was theatrical, of course. He had to play out his part in front of the dozen people he could muster to attend the meeting and cry about impending doom. But his description of the charter city idea was phrased in language that denigrated the current Council majority whom “nobody trusts,” nobody being, presumably a few dozen Zahra puppets and the Observer Sisters.

Their goal, according to Zahra, was to create new “land use” rules that would benefit the person who put the majority in their Council chairs and who spends his time buying up properties left and right. The unnamed bogeyman of Fullerton Boohoo – Tony Bushala. Goodness gracious, Zahra went on, the City of Fullerton itself was at stake.

Zahra’s other claims were so stupid and impossible that they hardly need to repeated except to show how desperate he has become. A charter city he falsely exclaimed, could get rid of competitive bidding on projects leading to shoddy construction! A charter city he falsely claimed could evade California’s prevailing wage laws leading to shoddy construction!

And then: the roads fix the roads. The roads are as bad as ever. The priceless wrap up? Zahra said the Council majority would tell people what they want to hear. And it won’t be the truth. Wow. Coming from leaky, weepy, dedicated to his con of the boohoos, Zahra.

When Zahra had finished his histrionics he was immediately challenged by Councilman Nick Dunlap for his previous no votes on infrastructure spending. Zahra interrupted noisily, as he has been doing lately, but was shut down by Dunlap and Mayor Jung. Councilwoman Jamie Valencia told Zahra not to worry – his Academy Award will come someday. She was greeted with boohoo boos from Zahra’s pals in the audience.

One telling part of this episode was when Councilperson Shana Charles, who had just cheerfully stated her interest in the charter possibility, voted no on the motion simply to study the idea – right after Zahra’s melt down.

The motion carried 3-2 so we have not heard the last of this issue.

March 5, 2025March 5, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Bitter Jaramillo Bites Dust. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon20 Comments

At last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting, Ahmad Zahra revealed his second nomination for the city’s Planning Commission. You may recall that his first nomination, Adrian Meza, doesn’t live in Fullerton and couldn’t take the job. Zahra’s new nominee? Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo. Friends may well remember Jaramillo from the fall city council campaign, where she finished behind Jamie Valencia.

Jaramillo’s nomination went down like the Hindenburg. Zahra and Charles voted yes, of course; Valencia, Dunlap, and Jung voted no. Unequivocally. How come? These appointments are usually rubber stamped by the Council.

Well, Friends may also recall Jaramillo’s political valediction, presented in the Fullerton Observer: a bitter lamentation how dirty tricks sank her little boat:

Rule number one in politics must be that if you want somebody to vote for you, try to refrain from calling them knuckleheads and puppets. During the campaign Jaramillo questioned Valencia’s credentials and commitment; not a big deal in an election, but not helpful later on when you want something from your former rival.

Then there’s the marijuana dispensary problem. Jaramillo has been a big supporter of the now reversed ordinance that would have permitted the greatest latitude for future permits. Dunlap and Jung had already votes to repeal that law. The thought that the dope lobby contributed $60,000 to get Jaramillo elected certainly must have caused pause for the council majority.

And then there’s the problem of Zahra’s own recent vote against nominations made by Jung and Valencia, most noticeably the choice of Arif Mansuri to the Traffic and Circulation Commission. If you’re going to start voting no on qualified nominees you should expect reciprocation for your unqualified ones.

My guess is that Zahra was on the phone after the meeting to boohoo like a little girl to one of the Kennedy Sisters, and they’ll be crying in print real soon about the usual outrage.

March 1, 2025March 1, 2025Arts & Architecture

Edgar Rosales The New Parks & Rec Truth Fabricator

by Fullerton Engineer28 Comments

Fullerton parks managers have a long and standout history of making things up, pursuing projects of benefit to themselves (programming), and of discounting real public input. I scanned old posts of FFFF to get a sense of the Parks Department players. Two of the leading prevaricators, Hugo Curiel and Alice Loya are gone; but a new face has emerged in this long tradition. And that face belongs to a guy named Edgar Rosales.

As Friends know, FFFF has been inquiring about the status of the deplorable Trail to Nowhere, noting that that two principal milestones have been completely missed – namely design submittal to the State and start of construction. These milestones are currently 8 months behind schedule. Mr. Peabody wondered aloud if it were even possible to meet the October ’25 completion deadline, and whether anybody even cared.

It turns out that the wheels of progress at City Hall may grind slow, but they do grind, especially if somebody else’s money is being wasted.

A sharp-eyed Friend noticed this item from the minutes of the January 13, 2025 Parks Commission meeting.

Enter Edgar Rosales, the new Alice Loya, Junior Grade. During his explanation of the Trail to Nowhere, Rosales started lying too; and misleading the Commission so blatantly, that it really was something to behold. His presentation was infuriatingly dishonest. But first, Edgar’s Transparent California dossier.

The first Rosales lie to the Parks Commission was the assertion that the project was on schedule. Of course it isn’t. Here are the contract schedule milestones.

No, not on schedule. Check the dates, Eddie…

FFFF has already shown that the contractual milestones are completely blown out of the water. Submission for final plans to the State was supposed to happen last June. Mr. Rosales didn’t bother to inform the Commission that this milestone still hasn’t been met eight months later. No. Instead he told them that preliminary designs were submitted last June, ostensibly to make it look like the schedule was met – just in case any of the Commissioners thought to inquire. They didn’t, of course, because they didn’t know.

Then Rosales volunteered that last August soils testing was done, again a statement crafted to look like the something meaningful had occurred – to look like the maybe even the construction start milestone had been met. Soils testing isn’t construction. That milestone is obviously blown open, too since it follows design, bid and award. The statements is not only a deliberate obfuscation of the true schedule delay, it begs the question of why the City told the State the land was clean in the grant application when they obviously didn’t know and didn’t care. That lie has been propagated endlessly by Trail supporters like the Kennedy Sisters.

The grant application fraudulently described the site as environmentally “shovel ready“ a lie that FFFF exposed long ago, and a lie now unintentionally confirmed by Rosales’ rosy recital of the project history. In the contract this intentional fraud is grounds for revocation/repayment of the grant – not that anybody at the State cares, either.

FFFF discovered through a Public Records Act request that there has been no written communication between the City and the State agency awarding the trail grant. If any contract extensions were made, they must have been verbal; and if any exist Edgar didn’t bother mentioning them.

As to the budget, why, that was looking good too! No mention by Rosales to the Commission that the grant budget failed to include soils testing, soils remediation and removal, water lines, storm drainage, or toxic monitoring well modifications; nor did he bother to remind the Commission about the rampant inflation that has taken place in the past five years since the grant application budget was submitted.

Maybe that accounts for his assertion that the City Council had appropriated $300K to $500K of Park Dwelling Funds as the City’s share of project cost. No, the City’s share was budgeted at $300K only, but that extra $200K sure will be needed.

And the hits kept coming.

Rosales repeated the lie that “Phase 1” starts at the Transportation Center. It doesn’t. It starts at the ass-back end of the still closed Poison Park. There is no eastern trail connectivity to anything.

Rosales deliberately refused to acknowledge that Phase 2 doesn’t even line up with Phase 1, glossing over the alignment mismatch at Highland Avenue where no at-grade crossing exists.

Rosales repeated the oft cited future connectivity at the west end, not a lie exactly, but a hope so delusional that it can pass as one.

So it appears that here is finally a “90%”design, although it has not yet gone trough City plan check or come to the City Council for ratification; and so far it isn’t listed as a tentative item for March meetings. Thereafter follows bid and contract award.

But Edgar is optimistic alright, as one with nothing to lose might well be. He believes the project will be done in October or November. If pigs grow wings that might happen. But there is even less chance of meeting the “plant establishment” milestone by October which necessarily follows planting by some period of time – sometimes months.

I note that Assistant City Manager Daisey Perez was present for this presentation and we should assume that both she and her boss, the boneless Eric Levitt are in on the promulgation of misinformation about this project.

Speaking of Levitt, no one here can remember an award for design services for the trail being approved by the City Council last year. A search of Council meetings in 2024 provides no information. So maybe the City Manager alone decided that a firm called KTUA – a San Diego landscape designer – got the job.

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Votes No on Arif Mansuri

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

Yesterday FFFF related the story of how Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra got rid of his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri for some young guy named Adrian Meza. In effect, the Planning Commission lost a professional engineer and would have gained a political wannabe whose day job is “marketing” for a fertility clinic that gets gay male couples children.

It turns out that Mr. Mansuri still wants to serve his fellow Fullerton citizens and Councilmember Jamie Valencia thought that was a good idea. So at the January 21, 2025 Council meeting she expressed her intention to nominate Mansuri for the Traffic and Circulation Commission. That item came up on the February 4th, 2025 council agenda – Item 3.

What’s of interest here is that Zahra voted no on Item 3, that included Mansuri’s ratification to the T&C Commission.

I will get what I want, one way or another…

What’s the big deal you ask?

Well, for starters it’s highly unusual for one councilmember to vote against a nomination made by one of his colleagues, particularly one who is more qualified than most Fullerton commission appointees. In Fullerton such things have always been considered bad form; in this case especially, since the man is qualified. We may conclude that Zahra doesn’t like Mansuri anymore and voted against him out of malice; or maybe it was spite against Valencia for favoring his own castoff commissioner.

Mansuri was appointed 4-1 so there’s no effect on almost anything by Zahra’s petulant vote. Almost. Because this vote creates a recent precedent of sorts that means nobody gets an auto pass when it comes to future appointments. And that includes Zahra himself who will be shopping for a new Planning Commissioner one of these days.

February 26, 2025February 26, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Wets Bed. Again.

by Joe Sipowicz19 Comments

Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra has been on a roll lately. And by roll, I mean getting humiliated by a council majority that is sick and tired of the immigration fraud, plagiarist, serial liar, and busted woman batterer. Well, no Kitty Jaramillo and no mayorship for you, Ahmad. No stipend-paying, do-nothing wank at the Orange County Water District, and no more idiot Walk on Wilshire.

We’ve seen his own flailing effort to create a controversy over Councilwoman Jamie Valencia’s campaign contributions, going so far as to basically accusing his own City Attorney of incompetence in the matter. And that’s not the only unforced error made by this little fellow.

Back in January Zahra decided not to re-appoint his Planning Commissioner Arif Mansuri, a gentleman FFFF has noted as a diligent and intelligent representative with actual professional credentials. Zahra instead appointed a young guy named Adrian Meza.

Never heard of Meza? I didn’t either so I did some research. The guy is one of those identity politicking “progressive” types, without any discernable ability who hang around politics for critical self validation – just like his apparent mentor, Ahmad Zahra. Meza says he is a Digital Marketing Specialist, whatever that means, and works for a company that arranges egg collection and surrogacy for gay people. What this has to do with experience in land use and planning is beyond me.

More importantly, Meza is a member of the that preachy and self-righteous crowd that doesn’t do an awful lot of thinking for themselves. Naturally he has been a writer of some kind for the Fullerton Observer that touted his video about how bad Fullerton’s roads are. The video recommended new taxes, of course, and even spent time wedging in support for the Trail to Nowhere with a hat tip to the community disservice of FFFF.

His bio on linkedin suggests he is still a Parks Commissioner (his first listed title!) and and even lists his efforts for the Observer as some sort of real job. Other stuff is part-time work in municipal park departments. Of course, like Zahra, he describes himself as a “videographer” with one amateur attempt listed. Man, talk about fluffing. We do have another Zahra on our hands.

Anyway, this selection has come to grief, apparently because Mr. Meza doesn’t currently live in Fullerton. as required by law. WoW. That’s embarrassing. How is it that Zahra didn’t know his guy doesn’t live here? And an even better question would ask whether Meza has been on Fullerton’s Park and Rec Commission while not a citizen of Fullerton. That would look bad. The question deserves an answer from Zahra; if Meza was willing to be on our Planning Commission illegally there’s no reason to suppose he had no qualms about being a Parks Commissioner while living, say, in Anaheim.

Of course no one will get an answer from Zahra about this, because no one will ask. Hopefully one of the other Councilpersons who ratified the nomination will try to find out. But I doubt it, Fullerton being Fullerton.

February 19, 2025February 19, 2025Behind Closed Doors

What if It Blows Up?

by The Fullerton Shadow30 Comments

The wasteful fantasy known as “Walk on Wilshire” may be dead – even though its advocates continue their public weeping – but interesting information about the boondoggle continues to to come to light – information that doesn’t put Fullerton in a good light. WoW is yet another Fullerton cautionary tale.

One issue about WoW never discussed in public, was the Mulberry Street Ristorante parklet’s violation of the standards of Southern California Edison regarding setbacks around their transformer vaults.

Oops.

There’s the culprit, deceptively hiding under car…

It turns out there’s an Edison tranformer vault in the street right in front of the “ristorante,” and right where their “parklet” was built. Here’s the plan for the parklet. The vault is dead center in the middle of it.

The problem popped up in October, 2023 when an Edison inspector discovered a problem: Edison requires a 15ft set back around the outside of their concrete vault, free of construction.

Oops.

Now, we can’t tell what that set back would look like without a sketch. So let’s make one!

The off-limits area inside the black square essentially eradicates the poor parklet. Oops!

Edison sent Mulberry Street a couple warning letters, the second, repeating the issues, in December, 2023.

Mulberry St. Ristorante replied to both these missives, saying more or the same thing each time.

Saying fuck you to Edison isn’t a very smart thing to do if you happen to use electricity, as we will soon see. Be sure to notice how Brandon Bevins, Mulberry’s Manager, also advises Edison to talk to the City of Fullerton!

This correspondence triggered a series of subtly urgent communications between the City Engineer and Edison at the end of 2023. Even our highly paid City Manager, Eric Levitt, was somehow dragged into this low-grade stupidity – all because the City staff who “managed” this project never thought to talk to Edison in the first place.

The tenor of the correspondence and the subsequent meetings was polite, but somewhat stiff since SCE had zero intention of looking the other way. In fact, SCE notified Mulberry Street that they were going turn off the juice to the whole property on January 19, 2024 sans compliance. So Bevins, who must have been panicking, tried to scare the City into desperate action.

Bevins was plenty pissed, and suggested that the we pay the costs for his parklet – just north of $40,000! So now the City had another self-inflicted wound. But wait. Mulberry wasn’t in the clear, either.

In correspondence from December 2022 the City (somebody named Matt Laninovich) erroneously tells Bevins that their parklet can cover the SCE vault so long as there is a hinged door in the parklet platform for access. Of course he pulled that out of his ass; but he also wisely informs Bevins to consult with Edison. Had Bevins done so he could have saved everybody time and trouble, including himself. Nevertheless, the City is now a full partner in a SNAFU that was completely avoidable.

A resolution of sorts was achieved on January 24, 2024 when Edison agreed to let the parklet remain if seating on it were limited to an area outside a 15ft radius from the perimeter of the iron manhole in the middle of the vault. The manhole would have to be reinforced (in case it might blow off in an explosion, presumably) and the vault had to be accessible from the Wilshire Avenue side.

This resolution doesn’t look too promising for Mulberry Street that also had to pay for that additional manhole restraint. Look. There’s hardly any room for seating left.

Was the parklet enlarged to make it actually work? Did Edison finally look the other way? Documents acquired from a Public Act Request don’t inform us: at this point information provided by the City about this issue ends. Was there more? Who knows?

One thing I do know is that images of the operating parklet from last year show tables within the no-go zone.

How much risk were the patrons who used the Mulberry Street parklet exposed to for the past year? How much risk if Edison had not spotted the issue to begin with? I don’t know, but Edison has safety rules for a reason. The explosion of the transformer in Huntington Beach in 2019 gives us some indication of what can go wrong, and the consequences of that episode were actually considered lucky.

Walk on Wilshire. A tail-wagging-the-dog gift that keeps on giving. The thing is a moot issue now, fortunately. But if anybody feels like asking good questions about this or other city-created public hazards, I’ll bet my Nevada ranch they won’t get good answers.

February 18, 2025February 18, 2025Ahmad Zahra

The Trail to Nowhere. Radio Silence With The Capital

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

The trouble with the City of Fullerton’s Public Records Act system is that responses are so dilatory, so frequently incomplete, and often so non-responsive, as Friends have seen over the years, it’s hard to know if you can draw any firm conclusions from what are charitably called public records.

Here’s an interesting request made a couple of weeks ago.

The request has elicited a “full release” response, so we may infer, I hope, that it really is full.

It’s a total waste of money, but it sure is short…

Why is this request interesting? Because the obscure State Department of Natural Resources is the grant-giving sugar daddy of the 2.1 million dollar UP Trail fiasco.

I noted back on January 27th that there were problems with the Trail to Nowhere project schedule, namely, that the design and construction milestones were seven and five months late, respectively.

It’s hard to know the exact status of this boondoggle because nobody in City Hall is saying anything about it to the public. I (confidently) assume the final design was never submitted to the State because the City Council never approved it, never released a bid or awarded a contract. Construction has obviously not started. Now there are just eight months left to do it all.

This is where the PRA request comes in. The response just shares a short email string between Fullerton and Natural Resource Department people trying to set up a meeting for a briefing on some water project up north and its impact on MWD cities’ water supply. That’s it. There is nothing about the grant for the so-called UP Trail.

The project showed little promise, but they didn’t care…,

So what is the status? Were the milestones waived by the Natural Resources Department? Has some schedule modification been made? If so there’s no correspondence (at least none shared by the City Clerk) that show it. That’s pretty odd, isn’t it? Is it possible the State isn’t even keeping track of the agreement and the City isn’t bothering to remind them? That strikes a believable chord.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Camp-750x1000.jpg

At this point it seems highly unlikely that the Trail to Nowhere could be completed in time, but maybe hope springs eternal. The State doesn’t seem to care.

Ahmad Zahra and his pal Shana Charles made a big deal about this dumbassery and organized such an annoying Astroturf backing for it, that the previous council majority chickened out and agreed to the mess. They haven’t been talking about it either, even though they already took a victory lap and threw themselves a party.

Let’s hope so.

February 12, 2025February 12, 2025Boohooism

Diane Vena Weeps

by Mr. Peabody21 Comments

Friends may remember the name Diane Vena in connection to the 2024 phony Fullerton District 4 council candidacy of newly minted Republican, Scott Markowitz. Poor Diane signed his nominating papers for some as yet unconfessed reason, although Sharon, the elder Kennedy Sister has claimed it was the behest of a fantastical and unnamed “conservative friend.”

Of course the problem was that Poor Diane had already endorsed a candidate in that election – Vivian Jaramillo. Her endorsement, whatever it’s worth, was on Jaramillo’s website. She was obviously an ardent member of Team Jaramillo. Uh oh. That’s not very good is it?

Anyhow, Poor Diane also makes a frequent nuisance of herself at council meetings, and the meeting of February 4th was no different. Her public comment was just so wonderfully inane, delusional and daft. Add in some Grade A Fullerton Boohoo boohooing and you have something that is so elevated in near-artistic sublimity that it deserves special recognition. Seriously, I couldn’t write a better satirical piece on the now defunct “Walk on Wilshire” and the dumbass boohooing that supported it.

The following AI summation is reproduced from the Fullerton Observer:

Diane Vena: She wanted to express her thoughts on the closing of Walk and Wilshire. Honestly, her heart was heavy. That morning, she drove down a street that used to be something beautiful, but it had now been reduced to just an ordinary little street. She had come to love Walk on Wilshire, especially the lake area, and appreciated seeing how many others loved it too.
She was there with a friend on Friday when they were dismantling everything; it might have been Thursday, but she couldn’t remember for sure. As she watched them take it all apart, she cried because she couldn’t help it. She disagreed with one of the previous speakers: many people paid taxes, and roads should serve all of us, including those who walked, those who could not drive, and those who simply preferred not to.
She believed they had lost something beautiful. That morning, all she saw was about 200 feet of road with cars driving through, and there wasn’t much traffic or activity. Normally, that space would have been filled with people enjoying breakfast, walking their dogs, or simply strolling along. She saw it as a tragedy that they had lost such a vibrant community space.

Of course the pathos of the paradise lost is funny. But so is the recognition that now cars can and do use the reopened street. Poor lachrymose Diane’s tears are wasted, of course; but in her worldview somehow the street belongs to pedestrians, too.

Faites-vous attention, Claudette et Mimi…

I’m reminded of one of those bad paintings of Parisian boulevards with witless pedestrians wandering around in the middle of street.

Poor Diane misses the morning hustle and bustle no rational person ever saw: mythical dogs and masters meandering in the street; strollers strolling back and forth across the 200 length of roadway. It had been “beautiful,” but now was “ordinary.” But at least Poor Diane noticed car drivers using the street – the very purpose of a paved road, in fact. And she unwittingly admits that she was one of them.

No, Friends, you can’t make this shit up.

February 10, 2025February 13, 2025Boohooism

The Problem of Bad Legal Advice

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

There really shouldn’t be any surprise that bad legal advice always comes with a price tag. Sometimes that cost is monetary. Sometimes it’s misleading and even abusing the public and its trust.

And so it has been over the decades for Fullerton and its egregiously awful lawyer, Dick Jones, of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm. The latest example is a real boner, even for a guy whose firm specializes in boners in dirty book stores and misbehaving topless bars.

It seems that last fall City Attorney Jones and Mayer may very well have passed advice to newly elected councilwoman Jamie Valencia that some of the donations to her campaign could be problematic, including those from Tony Bushala and the guy who owns the cigar place on Wilshire Avenue. Any official activities effecting these gentlemen might fall under the Section 84308 of the Government Code, the so-called “pay-to-play” statute.

The statute says that politicians can’t vote on licenses, contract awards, entitlements, permits or agreements with entities that give them over $250 in campaign cash. Valencia was supposedly given two options: recuse herself on such issues for at least a year; or, alternatively, give the money back. In November, she chose the latter.

We don’t know our cloaca from a hole in the ground.

Nothing more was said of this until the idiot Walk on Wilshire was up for a vote. At this point The issue of the pay-to-play statute came up again in the bone-headed precincts of Fullerton BooHooville, prompted by who knows who. The reason? Bushala and Mr. Cigar Guy both opposed the continued closure of Wilshire Avenue.

For some reason the City Manager Eric Levitt (according to the Kennedy Sisters of the Fullerton Observer) told them he believed the Valencia contribution return was in process, when it had been accomplished 6-8 weeks before. The fact that he even responded at all gave the boohoos confidence in their brand-new, trumped up “issue.”

And guess what? None of it even mattered!

That’s right. The vote on Walk on Wilshire had nothing to do with the pay-to-play law. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero. A layman could (and FFFF did) see that. No one was getting a license, a permit or a contract award; no one was getting an agreement or an entitlement. Citizens with opinions were simply giving them about a City directed action – not their own. It was so obvious. But not to Dick Jones, for some inexplicable reason. Was it ineptitude, laziness, or was there an ulterior motive? Who knows?

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Meantime, Fullerton BooHoo and the Fullerton Observer got into high dudgeon over the non-issue, and also whether the money had been given back to the contributors. They tried hard to craft a corruption scandal. “Questions were being asked,” the Kennedy Sisters huffed and puffed, their erectile hairs stiffened. Their nincompoop followers raised the issue at the council meeting in question. But in the end it was irrelevant gums flapping.

Now for the fun part. Guess what? The identical issue had already been raised last fall by City of Palo Alto Councilmember Patrick Burt. About what? The issue was a controversial, City-created street closure vote! What are the odds? Mr. Burt inquired of the FPPC whether such a vote fell under the purview of the pay-to-play law.

Here’s the FPPC decision letter in the Palo Alto case.

If you don’t want to read the whole letter, here’s the conclusion:

CONCLUSION
No, decisions by the Palo Alto City Council to permanently close the specified downtown
areas to car traffic are not entitlement for use proceedings subject to Section 84308. The City
Council initiated the actions to close these areas permanently to car traffic. The facts indicate that
the interests impacted by the closures will be many and diverse. Furthermore, the closures were not
applied for, nor have entitlements for use been formally or informally requested by any party to
date, and the decisions do not involve a contract between the City and any party.

As you can see, the reply was succinct, and the answer was no, just like FFFF had said. Why didn’t Dick Jones know this? Why, indeed. This was a very important finding for those in the political arena – like Jones himself.

Poor Ms. Valencia was caused to publicly explain herself and her return of the campaign cash when she didn’t have to. That alone would cause me to cut loose the useless dumpster fire known as Jones and Mayer for their blatant incompetence.